Product

Everything Sextant does, and how it fits together

Sextant reads your org's metadata as you and keeps an index of it in your browser. Everything on this page is built on that index and works in three places: on the Salesforce page, in the toolbar and in Sextant's own tab.

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Find

From the words on the screen to the component

Search starts from what someone actually saw: a label, a phrase in any of the org's languages or the start of an API name. It returns components, not pages. It covers everything Sextant has read from the org, not only what can be translated, and shows why each result matched.

For the admin answering a ticket about something on a screen, and the developer looking for the API name behind a label.

Open in the demo How to find the Salesforce metadata behind text in Lightning

Search: Every language and every type Sextant has read: objects, fields, picklist values, Custom Labels, layouts, flows, Apex. Exact translations come first, and each result says whether it matched a translation, a whole word or the start of an API name. Filter by type, by whether it is in your Workspace and by whether it changed recently.In Sextant's tab
Quick Search: The same index from the toolbar, on any tab: Setup, a ticket or your email. Enter opens the component in Salesforce or in Sextant, depending on your Settings, and the last two components you opened stay as recents.In the toolbar
Inspect on hover: When the text is already on a Lightning page in front of you, hold a key and point at it. See Understand, below.On the Salesforce page

Understand

Everything about one component, in one place

Every part of Sextant leads to the inspector. It shows the component's type, API name and object, every language side by side, what Sextant has seen happen to it and a link to it in Setup. When Sextant cannot be sure which component a text belongs to, it shows nothing, because a confident wrong answer costs more than no answer.

For anyone who has to change something and first needs to know exactly what it is.

Open in the demo

Sextant's inspector open on the Custom Label Customer_Verification_Message, next to the search results that found it: its API name, its translations in English, Spanish and French, and an empty Dutch translation. — The inspector next to the search that found it: the component's identity first, then every language.

The inspector: Type, API name and object, ready to copy. Every language the org has enabled, with missing translations and ones identical to the source marked. Its history in this org and a link to it in Setup.In Sextant's tab
Inspect on hover: Hold Shift and point at a label, a field, a picklist value or a Custom Label on a Lightning page. The tooltip is the inspector's first answer, and it follows the pointer while the key is held.On the Salesforce page
One answer or none: Sextant never shows a ranked list of possible origins. When the page gives it nothing it can prove, it shows nothing.Everywhere

Translate

Translate the set you are working on, in every language the org uses

There are three ways to translate: one value where you found it, a whole page at once, or your whole working set in one grid. All three save the same way: the current value is re-read first, production always asks, and a batch succeeds or fails as a whole.

For the admin who owns an org's languages, and the translator handed a release's worth of labels.

Open in the demo Translating a Salesforce org: where every label is translated How to find missing translations in Salesforce

Multi Translate: the components kept in the Workspace in a grid with one column per language (English, Spanish, French and Dutch), two Dutch cells empty, and 37 of 39 translated. — The working set, in every language at once. The two empty Dutch cells are the work left.

Multi Translate: The components in your Workspace, one row each, with a column for each language the org has. Filter them, show only what is missing and type down a column: Enter saves and moves down, Tab moves across. Nothing reaches Salesforce until you deploy the batch.In Sextant's tab
Translate All: One shortcut on a Lightning page shows the translations of every label on it and marks where a language is missing.On the Salesforce page
Edit in place: In the inspector, open a language and type. Save & deploy sends that one change; Add to deploy keeps it with the rest for one batch.In Sextant's tab

Organize

Keep the components you work on

The Workspace holds your working set: everything you pinned and every component you edited, with its previous value. Group it the way your work is organized and add notes. If a component you kept changes in the org later, the Workspace tells you, including in which language.

For anyone carrying a piece of work across several days, or handing it over to someone else.

Open in the demo

The Workspace listing the components kept in Northstar, grouped, with their change counts and the Translate and Export package.xml actions. — The working set, pinned, edited and grouped, ready to translate or to export as a package.xml.

Pins and edits: Pin anything from Search or the inspector. An edit you make is captured automatically, with its value before and after.In Sextant's tab
Groups and notes: Groups for a release, a ticket or a team, and a note on a component for what you decided and what you still need to ask.In Sextant's tab
Changed since: When a component you kept changes in the org, it is marked with the language that changed, so your working set stays accurate.In Sextant's tab

Compare

Environments side by side, and one org over time

A snapshot is a complete read of an org's translations at one moment. You can compare two snapshots from two orgs, or from the same org at two moments. The report always states which two reads it compares and how old each one is.

For the release manager checking what reached Production, and the team running several sandboxes of one company.

Open in the demo How to compare translations between Salesforce orgs

Across orgs: Production, UAT and Development in one report: what differs, what is missing and what exists in only one org. Find the Dutch that was finished in UAT and never deployed.In Sextant's tab
Over time: One org at two moments, to see what a deployment actually changed. When orgs tie, the report says there is no consensus instead of picking a winner.In Sextant's tab
Org profiles: A name, a group and a colour for each org, used everywhere Sextant shows it. Production keeps its own mark whatever colour you choose. Salesforce never sees any of it.In Sextant's tab

Remember

A history of changes, with the source of each one

Salesforce records no author and no date for a translation change. Activity keeps only what Sextant has evidence for and labels each entry with where that evidence came from. When a change cannot be attributed to anyone, the entry says Unknown instead of borrowing a name.

For anyone asked what changed and when, who needs to be honest about what cannot be known.

Open in the demo

Observed changes: What Sextant saw change between two reads of the org, with the value before and after.In Sextant's tab
Deployments noticed: Deployments that reach the org, including ones started outside this browser, and what Sextant saw change around them.In Sextant's tab
Export: The history as a file, or a set of changes as a package.xml.In Sextant's tab

Release

From a change to a safe deployment

Before anything is written, Sextant shows which org it is going to, with its name, environment and colour. Changes wait in one tray and deploy as a batch that succeeds or fails as a whole. Saving directly to Production, or to an org Sextant has not identified, always asks first.

For the admin shipping translations, and the developer who needs them in a release branch.

Open in the demo How to translate Custom Labels in Salesforce

The New Custom Labels grid with a label named, its English value and its Spanish translation filled in, and a column for each of the org's other languages. — New labels and every language in one pass. Nothing reaches Salesforce until you deploy.

The deploy tray: Every queued change in one place, deployed as one batch. The current values are re-read first, and if a colleague made a newer change, the batch stops instead of overwriting it.In Sextant's tab
package.xml: From a Workspace group or from a set of changes in Activity, to use with the deployment tool you already have.In Sextant's tab
New Custom Labels: Create labels with every translation in one grid, checked against the org as you type and deployed as one batch.In Sextant's tab

How it works

All of this is one product. Every part of Sextant reads the same index and names components the same way, so the component you point at on a page is the one Search finds, the Workspace keeps, a comparison lines up across orgs and Activity dates.

Sextant is a Manifest V3 extension for Chrome and Edge. Its background service worker calls Salesforce's REST, Tooling and Metadata APIs as you, with the session you already have. The part that runs inside Lightning pages reads the text on screen to identify it and asks the service worker for the rest.

It builds an index of the org's translatable metadata and keeps it in your browser's storage, so hover, Search and Activity answer without a round trip to Salesforce and a large org is not read again on every page. The index shows how old it is and how much of the org it covers, and a deployment to the org invalidates it.

Every write takes the same path. Sextant re-reads the current value first, always asks before it writes to a production org, and deploys changes as a batch that succeeds or fails as a whole, never half of it silently.

Requirements

Price: free. No account and no subscription.
Chrome or Edge (any Chromium browser that installs Chrome Web Store extensions).
Salesforce Lightning Experience. Sextant does not run in Classic.
API Enabled on your user's profile or permission set: every read and write goes through Salesforce's APIs.
Translation Workbench enabled, with at least one language, for translation data to exist at all.
If Setup → Session Settings → Lock sessions to the domain in which they were first used is enabled, Sextant cannot connect, because Salesforce rejects the background worker's session. It is the most common reason a new install seems not to connect.

Known limitations

Stated up front, so you don't have to discover them.

Editing covers nine types: Custom Labels, the labels and picklist values of custom (__c) fields, record types, custom buttons and links, quick actions, layout sections, tabs and apps. Standard fields and standard picklist values are read-only on purpose. Object labels and related lists are deferred. Standard buttons and tabs are Salesforce's own translations and stay read-only.
Hover identifies objects, fields and their help text, picklist values, Custom Labels, buttons and quick actions, tabs and apps, layout sections, related lists and record types. Text on flow screens is not identified on hover, but Search finds it.
A save through the Metadata API takes about a minute, almost all of it spent in Salesforce's own deploy queue. Custom Labels use a faster path.
Recently changed metadata may not appear immediately. The index has a freshness window and shows how old it is, and a deployment Sextant notices invalidates it.
Not validated against every org shape. Professional Edition and orgs with API Access Control restrictions have not been tested.

Try Sextant without installing it

The interactive demo runs the real Sextant interface and product logic in your browser, against a fictional Salesforce org. No installation, no Salesforce account and no sign-in.

Start the guided demo

Explore Sextant on your own